


The Love We Accept

by tactfulGnostalgic



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Addiction Problems, F/F, Flushed Romance | Matesprits, Game Over Timeline, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Retcon Timeline, Sensory Overload
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-13 15:53:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9131278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tactfulGnostalgic/pseuds/tactfulGnostalgic
Summary: This is where it ends.You put on your Ancestor's red, and brandish your canes, and walk to the roof of the meteor with long, determined strides. You move like a Legislacerator about to enact her punishment on a criminal, which is what you are. It is all you are, you tell yourself. You do not permit yourself to envision yourself otherwise. You aren't a child about to kill the only friend she's ever had, you aren't a troll about to commit murder in the name of a dying world. You don't feel anything. That's always been your problem. You feel too much. Now is the time for acting first and thinking later. Be a little bit more like Vriska, a little less like you.She thinks that you don't care about her. She's wrong, of course. You have always cared. She is the focus of your universe, the point around which all other priorities orient themselves. To kill her is impossible. To let her die is unthinkable.





	

**Author's Note:**

> A companion piece to "The Love We Deserve."

 

> "Good and bad have never been more relative terms than when applied to the likes of you.
> 
> But I agree with her. To me, you have always been a hero."
> 
> _-J.R. Ward_

 

i. 

_Hero, noun: a person who is idealized for courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities; (in mythology and folklore): a person of superhuman qualities and often semidivine origin, in particular one of those whose exploits and dealings with the gods were the subject of ancient myths and legends._

You learn what a hero is before you learn how to speak. Your lusus whispers words through her crystal shell of worlds beyond imagination, trolls capable of wonders, trolls who became gods and gods who were kind and brave and good. She told you,  _There are wonders yet in this broken world_ , and she told you,  _You can be one of them, if you are brave enough_. And so upon these words you built the foundation of who you were: if nothing else, if weird and obsessive and incapable of empathy, you are braver than anyone else. You will never turn your back on someone who needs you. There are not enough brave people in the universe, so you're brave for all of them.

"Brave enough."

At night, when you sink into the cold, textureless depths of sopor slime, you often open your eyes and feel it soothe your scarred corneas. Brave enough. You have always been trying to be nothing more than brave enough. That's what a good person is. They're brave enough to kill and brave enough to spare and brave enough to make the decision to do one or the other, when decisions need be made, and brave enough to stride past that decision and doubt it. You thought of your Ancestor, dressed in the mutant red of a troll murdered for his bravery, dead by the grace of a coward's gambit, and wonder if you will ever be brave enough.

 

ii.

Vriska Serket is everything that you ever wanted to be.

You grew up surrounded by an empty forest and empty rooms, a lifetime supply of food and a sound hive, sound enough to keep out anybody who might come knocking. You know that you type oddly; you know that your voice sounds a little _off,_ at times, or at least enough that people are uncomfortable listening to you talk. You know it's not normal to roleplay with stuffed animals and lick chalk. But it's not like anybody ever tried explaining to you  _why_ it isn't normal, or why you shouldn't. It was just one of those things: oh, that Terezi Pyrope, she's weird because she was raised by an egg. Don't read too much into it.

Vriska is the troll of trolls, the posterchild for the ideal Alternian subject. When she sees what she wants, she takes it. No doubts about ethical implications, no spiraling thought quicksand of possible consequences. She waltzes into your life on a stray Trollian thread about potential FLARP partners and demands you meet her at her hive, regardless of convenience, for a trial session. She's rude and straightforward and she tells you _exactly what she thinks,_ and nobody  _ever_ tells you exactly what they think, and it's so refreshing that you almost miss your opportunity by doubting her sincerity. But you don't miss your opportunity; you help her feed her lusus, even though you're sure she doesn't need you there.

You know you're not as proficient a fighter as she is. That's not something you held any delusions about. She has a luck, a skill with whatever weapons are at her disposal that makes her an incredible combatist and remarkable tactician. At best, you were her second-in-command who manned the ship when she was taking care of business. At worst, you were an accessory, a gaudy red-and-teal ornament whose most useful function was providing cheap entertainment in between raids. She was always so much better than you, so much smarter. 

But she always  _looked_ at you with those eyes - like you were the only thing in the world that mattered, like you mattered at  _all._  When she finished killing someone, she looked you right in the eye and watched your face as if you could give her absolution from everything that she had ever done. You know she thought she was subtle about it, but she wasn't, really, not at all. She let you choose whom to kill, whom her wrath fell upon. She let you flip your ridiculous coins and cackle and be unapologetically abnormal. Vriska didn't give a shit what your voice sounded like. She always seemed to enjoy hearing it.

And then she shared things with you: things about her past, about her Ancestor, about her wretch of a lusus. When she told you the extent of Spidermom's treachery, you were tempted to go put a sword through one of the thing's eight beady eyes. But you didn't, because Vriska needed her. Instead, you tried to help her as much as you could. Play Redglare to her Mindfang. 

You ignore the fact that Redglare, the hero, was killed by Mindfang, the pirate. You ignore the fact that your Ancestors played bitter rivals to their dying days. You ignore the fact that Redglare died young and at the hands of people she trusted, because you don't care. Your Redglare is Mindfang's protector. Your Redglare stands shoulder-to-shoulder with her and beckons the world. For a while, you allow yourself to think,  _Fuck consequences, she's here and she needs me._ For a while, that was true.

Then she lands in diamonds with Kanaya, and it enlightens you to several things at once. You thought you knew where you stood with her - you thought what was between you was pale, solid pale, pale as stars or the scalding Alternian sun. Apparently not. That's fine; there are three other perfectly useful quadrants. And then she starts talking about Tavros, and you think, all right - it wasn't red, then. And it can't be black, either, because she's in spades with a highblood, what use would she have for you? Ashen is useless - you'd never be able to mediate her. You'd always end up on her side.

You stop coming over as often, after Kanaya. You don't answer her on Trollian with as much enthusiasm or frequency as you did before. It's sour medicine after so much contact, but you decide that it's time to purge yourself of need. You know you should never need anyone more than they need you - anything else is a recipe for disaster.

Maybe it hurts her, too, but if it does, she doesn't show it. And you come to the realization that Vriska Serket will never need you half as much as you need her. Knowing this, you come to peace with it. Heroes are selfless, right? They love without expectation of compensation. You can, too.

When Kanaya dumps her, you scrape together every selfless feeling that you can and offer your condolences. It's the least you can do. You feel guilty for being grateful, but it's not your fault. You can't change how you feel, you tell yourself, you can only change how you act. You promise Vriska Serket that you will stand by her, and be whatever she needs you to be. If that's all you can do, then you will take it, and be grateful to have that much.

 

iii.

You hear of what she does to Aradia and Tavros and Sollux when you're not there to watch over her, and you spend a long night outside, watching the moon slide over the horizon. Your lusus offers you a few words of comfort, but you don't accept them. She trolls and trolls and trolls you but you ignore the buzzing of your husktop, instead contemplating the remarkable angle of moonlight as it shatters on the leaves of your tree. You do not realize at the time that it will be one of the last things you ever see.  

Then you go inside and beg her to change your mind. Because to hurt her is unthinkable but necessary. Because you know that if Vriska were in your place, she wouldn't hesitate. She always does what is necessary. You can't. You do what is possible, and move from there.

GC: GU3SS 1M LOOK1NG FOR SOM3 R34SON TO CH4NG3 MY M1ND  
GC: 1 DONT KNOW WH4T YOU C4N S4Y TH4TLL DO 1T  
GC: 1 SORT4 HOP3 TH3R3S SOM3TH1NG THOUGH 

No, there isn't anything. You knew there wouldn't be anything, because you have unparalleled intelligence and too much compassion to do anything great with it. So you take her eye and her left arm and then, when her account goes dark, kneel in the dim lights of your hive and try not to feel guilty. Redglare wouldn't feel guilty. Mindfang was a criminal, and Redglare brought her to justice. _Justice_. You have executed justice.

You wake up blind, and after a scream tears your throat raw, your lusus reaches into your head and showers soothing words there. _You are like me, now, child,_ and  _I will teach you how to be stronger than ever before, now, child._ And she makes blindness into something to be proud of. You are now an embodiment of the justice you enacted on your closest friend in the world. You think it's fitting. Now you can never forget what you did to her, or what she did to you in return; your world is defined by Vriska's influence on your life, and hers by yours. It makes some unhealthy part of your heart happy to think of it that way. What you do to each other is terrible, but it's fitting for the pair of you.

You go to your computer no less than eight times, in the coming weeks, and click on Vriska's handle, and smell the cursor blink expectantly at you. Each time you congratulate yourself on not contacting her. This, you think, is courage, resisting the impulse to run back to your old habits. (It is cowardice, in all actuality, and deep-seated fear of what she will say upon your return. But you push this thought aside in the emergence of more important information.)

Finally, you leave your hive, equipped with two canes as red as the blood of a mutant martyr and the dead, useless eyes rotting in your skull. As you expect, you become an immediate target, because who expects a blind girl to fight back? More than once, you are approached by the Imperial Drones; even more dangerous than the Drones are your fellow trolls, who are trained to spot weakness like the apex predators that they are. Each time one approaches, you smile your wild terrible smile, and unsheath your swords, and enact brutal, swift vengeance with all the grace and fury that you imagine Vriska might, in your place. Catharsis is swift and beautiful. The relief you experience upon realizing that you can still fight is exquisite.

You stop FLARPing, after a while. It grows tiresome without anybody to guard your back, and even though you are far from helpless, it's a lot harder to fight effectively with only four-fifths of your previous senses. Your endurance, although considerably higher than average, takes a hit. Other daily practices do, too. You begin to forget what objects look like, instead recognizing them by the shape and texture and scent. You cling to the image of Vriska's face. You relish and thank God that you will never have to see Vriska as you left her, crippled. In your imagination, she is just as she always was; confident, and free, and whole. 

You know that you are little, without her (you were little with her, too). But it doesn't matter, does it? You are and have always been whatever you are needed to be. Right now, you need to be strong for your other friends. She doesn't need you. She can't need you. You're Terezi Pyrope, not Legislacerator Redglare, and Vriska Serket is no longer your concern.

 

iv.

Dave Strider is funny and foolish and so evidently alien that it hurts. He writes in red but doesn't understand what it means, certainly never understood what it means to you. He stumbles into adventure and shrugs his shoulders, equips a blade, and plunges in without considering the consequences; who cares for consequences, when you can rewrite history at your leisure? His existence opposes everything you stand for: he is the embodiment of indetermination, paradox, pride, uncertainty. You'd like to hate him, but you can't.

Dave and Vriska wouldn't get along, but it would be their similarities that caused a rift, not their differences. Neither of them really think before talking. Neither of them think about the consequences until they're waist-deep in them. They solve one problem at a time, one step into the future after another, moving in linear time. Ironically, you are perhaps the only player you've ever met - and you've met two Time players - who thinks in non-linear time. You think about loopholes and causality. You think that you would give your left arm to have Dave's power of the Reset Button, of the Rewind, of fixing the past. A Sylph of Time, perhaps, you think. You could be a fantastic Time player. 

You kill John to prove that you can. And you realize only belatedly that it may hurt Vriska, doing it, but -  _she doesn't care, does she? Not really. She doesn't care about anyone but herself, she can't care about anyone but herself and the people of use to her, and once you're no longer useful to her you are removed. Terezi Pyrope is not was not has never will never be_ useful _-_

You kill Dave to try and understand the feeling of the Reset Button. You crave that. You imagine, beforehand, watching the green-suited boy with the hair like Skaian clouds kneel by his Quest Bed, that the feeling will be one of power; it'll be a rush of adrenaline and cortisol, the beauty of watching a well-executed manipulation unfold exactly as you intend it. It is not. It is painful and it is hard and you learn very quickly that death is not something you play with as one plays with everything else.

Karkat stares at you in disgruntlement when you start to cry and you want to punch him. But it makes sense, doesn't it? Why would you - why would the crazed tree-living chalk-eating roleplaying legislacerator - care for the life of a human, one that she killed in the first place? Why would you care about anything? 

No, you wouldn't, would you? You're just the Seer. You wait and wait and wait to see how things will unfold and by the time you're ready to do something, people have already moved on without you.

Vriska finds you after Dave's death, curled in a storage closet and taking deep, gulping lungfuls of air and struggling to keep your heartrate at a stable level.

"What the fuck? Pyrope.  _Pyrope."_ She drops to her knees at your side but doesn't touch you. She knows not to touch you - she is the only person who would know not to, and her hands rest within a considerate distance: close enough to reach for, far enough so as to present no threat. This would happen, sometimes, when you were Mindfang and Redglare together. Usually after you killed someone. It would pass. You would close your eyes and think about the person's crimes and it would pass. But Dave didn't do anything. He just trusted and trusted until the person he was trusting lead him to his own death -

"Pyrope, you need to fucking look at me. Jegus shit, sorry, smell me. Something? I don't know. I don't think you give a fuck about that sort of thing, anyway. Rose called it a microaggression? Or some shit? Fuck me, I don't know."

Her voice is smooth, low, and utterly acerbic, and it runs down your spine in comforting waves. You rest your chin on your knees and the shaking calms, somewhat.

"What happened? Did Karkat say something? I saw him poke at you earlier - I can go fuck him up, if you want. Actually, I'll probably do that regardless of whether you want me to, but like, I can dedicate it in your honor, or something."

"No, that's okay." As an afterthought, you add, "Leave Karkat alone."

"Not a chance in hell."

"Okay." You nod, rubbing your shoulders. You knew she wouldn't take your opinion into consideration, but you thought you'd give it a shot, anyway. That's how it goes with her, you've learned. 

Your lusus is dead, but you can hear her voice still.  _A hero is never cowardly; a hero never balks before their task; a hero meets their end with joy, if it is an end well earned in service of a good cause; a hero does the necessary; a hero disregards the_ _inessential_.

A hero doesn't collapse in a broom closet. You wonder what your lusus would say to you now.

Vriska, sensing that you have overcome the worst of it, lays her hand on your shoulder. Her skin is a few degrees cooler than yours. The temperature seeps into your heated skin and massages the last of the panic away. She has always been able to do this. It's what you think moirails do for each other, except if she was your moirail, you'd be able to do it, too. But you have never seen Vriska off her guard. Certainly you have never been able to induce her to drop it.

"It was about Dave," you begin, but her scent sours immediately at the name. Perhaps she still doesn't like the humans. Or maybe she only likes John.

_John, who is never doubtful, who never thinks twice about his actions. John, who is brave without having to fucking try why wouldn't she -_

"What'd he do?"

"He died."

"Oh, shit." She laughs. "Rest in peace, Lesser Strider. Ah, well. The real one's still there." She stands up, dusts off her pants. She's back in her element, and the moment passes. Any tenderness is gone. You want to cling to her and wrench whatever ounces of affection you can from her, beg her to never love or care about anyone but you - but that's not her way, is it? And it's not yours to beg, either.

"Where are you going?" You lift your face, just barely avoid asking to accompany her. 

"Down to the lab. Got an appointment to keep with Tavros." Her scent sharpens into excitement, enthusiasm, longing. You dig your claws into the meat of your palm to distract yourself from jealousy. "Later, Pyrope?"

"Later, Serket," you say, mimicking her, and she leaves you to push yourself to unstable feet in the musty rank of a supply closet. In a way, you appreciate your isolation. You are free to cry all you like. Nobody minds.

 

v. 

This is where it ends.

You put on your Ancestor's red, and brandish your canes, and walk to the roof of the meteor with long, determined strides. You move like a Legislacerator about to enact her punishment on a criminal, which is what you  _are._ It is  _all_ you are, you tell yourself. You do not permit yourself to envision yourself otherwise. You aren't a child about to kill the only friend she's ever had, you aren't a troll about to commit murder in the name of a dying world. You don't feel anything. That's always been your problem. You feel too much. Now is the time for acting first and thinking later. Be a little bit more like Vriska, a little less like you.

You look Vriska Serket in the eye and you play the same game you always have. You and she both unfold together an intricate mental game of chess, where you shuffle all possible moves and then narrow the outcomes to two: she goes, and you all die, or she stays, and she dies. It has never been so simple. It has never been so awful.

Even when the answer is obvious, you try and give her a chance. You pull out a coin that you cannot see and promise her a fair chance at survival. You think that hey, if you're wrong, the Game will correct you, right? If her death is unjust, she'll come back. You get second chances. You can afford to make a bad call.

She thinks that you don't care about her. She's wrong, of course. You have always cared. She is the focus of your universe, the point around which all other priorities orient themselves. To kill her is impossible. To let her die is unthinkable.

When the coin falls, she turns her back to you. Two beautiful gossamer wings sprout from her shoulder blades, fine and shining in the pale lights of the Medium. You imagine placing your hands between them, feeling the blood move beneath your fingers. A situation where her back is offered freely, not from disdain or doubt of your courage, but from infinite and absolute trust.

You act before you can lose your nerve. This is what your lusus taught you.  _Thought is the enemy of bravery. Do not indulge it._

The blade goes through her heart and emerges between her breasts. You hold it there for eight seconds - counting them carefully - long enough to hear her heart stutter, clench, and stop. Then you wrench it from her back, the steel glistening blue. Her blue. The color of her eyes, her lips, her wrists, the glow beneath her skin. It's on your sword and it falls to the ground in slow, deafening drops.

You observe her corpse vigilantly. You wait for the glow, of reanimation or the declaration of  ** _JUST_** that would validate your decision. You wait and wait and wait until you are aware that others are watching you, but you don't care.

But nothing happens. Your decision is neither affirmed nor negated by the judgment of Paradox Space. Vriska remains dead, and her blood remains on your sword, and you remain stationary as the meteor drifts through space.

Eventually, you sheathe your blade and leave her body to rest. Your heart beats against the walls of your throat as it tries to climb into your mouth, where you feel a tide of bile rising swiftly. You turn and flee.

* * *

 

When Gamzee approaches you, you do not say no.

In the early days, you could easily tear him to pieces without exerting any particular effort. He doesn't scare you. So what if he's a Highblood? You have years of combative training, compounded by incredible strategic affinity and the alliance of virtually everyone else on the meteor. If you had chosen to end him in the early days of your stay on the rock, Gamzee would have been dead within hours.

But you don't. He whispers awful things in your ear, and you close your eyes and try to imagine - as you did before, when people told you those things - what Vriska would say to him, if he were here. You imagine what Vriska would say if anybody dared to insult her. She never took abuse from Eridan; if he disrespected her, she brought him to his knees. In a way, that wasn't healthy, either. But it was healthier than what you let Gamzee do to you.

(You do not "let" him do anything. You consent to nothing, but he does not hear refusal, either, and he presumes the rest. After a while, the energy to reject his advances is beyond your grasp, and you can do nothing more than drink until your problems fade from mind in the rare hours that he leaves you alone.)

But Vriska is dead. She can't say anything to anybody. And even if she could, she would have nothing to say to you, or on your behalf. You are now, as ever, irrelevant. So when Gamzee whispers debasements in your ear, you don't think  _Fuck off, you murderous asshole,_ you think,  _yes, good, right, deserved._  

* * *

 

When you meet Latula, she is Redglare incarnate and you  _hate_ her. 

And it isn't fair for you to hate her, and you know it isn't good. Heroes aren't jealous of other heroes; they are effortlessly confident. But Latula is effortless in everything she does. She is unapologetic in her love for problematic people, and defends them fiercely, rejects criticisms. She meets unwanted advances with polite but firm denial. She clings to what matters and disregards the rest. You hate her bitterly, in a very deep, unpleasant part of you, for having everything you need to succeed but doing nothing with it. She - confident, intelligent, brave - chooses to spend the rest of her life in a Dream Bubble, while you, pathetic and useless and cowardly, have to keep fighting? You could have died at any time, but you didn't. Why is  _she_ rewarded? 

 

When you meet Aranea, she is much easier to talk to.

She comes off enough like Vriska to be comforting - the smell of her blood is the same - but is distinct enough as to be inviting. It's like talking to a picture of Vriska, really. You can imagine the two of you having more of a relationship than you do, and it's easy. It's too easy. You understand, distantly, that you should not trust her, nor should you allow her to befriend you with as much ease as she does. But you can't help it. Rose and Kanaya are wrapped up in mutual bliss; Dave has abandoned you, after perhaps finally realizing that you aren't who he thought you were; Karkat, having distanced himself from you after your romantic engagement with Dave began, likely no longer even considers you a friend. It's simple to lose yourself in Aranea's pretty words, and soft touches, and ignore the way her supposed warmth never seeps through to her smell, which is always the sharp, cold scent of blood on steel. 

 _You're smarter than this,_ you can imagine your lusus saying, but that doesn't matter. She was wrong about your judgment. She was probably wrong about other things about you, too. 

Aranea offers to heal your eyes, and you consider. When you were first blind, you were so pleased, because it meant you would never forget Vriska, or what you did to her. But you don't think that's a danger, now. Much more inviting now is the possibility that it will allow you to forget.

"Heal me," you beg her, and she smiles her beautiful horrific smile, and her hand glides over your face, and then you blink and your corneas no longer burn. You blink and the lights just behind your eyes sharpen into specific sights, colors, wavelengths, and all of a sudden there is too much too much  _too much too much TOO MUCH TOO MUCH **TOO MUCH TOO MUCHTOOMUCHTOOMUCH**_

"Terezi? Terezi, what's wrong? Are you all right? You have to talk to me!" Aranea's hands are all over you, too many places,  _everywhere and you cannot escape them and it is too cold and in too many places at once_ -

You shove her hands away and the noise that crawls out of your throat is ugly and animalistic, but it does the job; she springs backwards, hands up, suddenly afraid. You know she is afraid because you can see it written in the wide yellow of her eyes, the flat creases of her face, the stiffness in her spine. You close your eyes and it's better; you still know she's afraid, because of the sudden pungency in her scent, but it is a muted sensation. You don't have to think as much about it. You can focus on your own body, on breathing in, and out, and in, and out, until your heart rate slows and you can think again.

Vriska would have known not to put her hands on you.

You lock that thought away and open your eyes just a fraction.

"Terezi? What was that?"

"Uh," you say. "It was - it was just dumb, sorry. I wasn't ready."

"That's completely all right. I should have warned you beforehand. I should have given you time to prepare." She shakes her head, clicking her tongue ruefully. "Entirely my fault. I apologize."

"It's - fine. It's fine." You rub your arms. Some aftershocks run up and down your skin, pebbling gooseflesh there.

"Do you need my help getting back home? You should wake up soon." Her smile is even less convincing when you can see it.

"No. I'll just wake up in bed, probably." You think wistfully of the days before the sopor ran out. You slept better, back then, if not perfectly. It made Gamzee easier to deal with, too.

"All right. I'll see you later, then, Terezi," she says cheerfully, and shakes your hand. You flinch so hard that it pulls you out of sleep, and then you sit up in the darkness of your room and hope for a desperate moment that it wasn't real, that Aranea was wrong about the strength of her powers - but then you see the soft glow of emergency lights along the baseboards of your room, and you breathe out, long and slow.

You spend that day in bed, counting to a hundred and then counting back. Repeat it once in English, once in Alternian. Ignore Gamzee's messages. Ignore Dave's, too. Get up to find food and then return to bed, drink in the dark - you can almost pretend you're still blind, in the dark - and wait for sleep.

 

vi.

You stand on the Land of Light and Rain, and stare into the hyperreal blur of the pastel clouds, and think,  _This is the most godawful flamboyant piece of shit light show I've ever seen._ That is the very moment you decide that light - and by extent, sight - really isn't worth the damage it does you, and alchemize yourself a good, strong blindfold.

You harbor no doubts about your worth, or your usefulness. You know you can't do much. No God Tier. No classpect powers. On a team with a chainsaw-wielding vampire, a girl who can see the future, a boy who can time travel, and a boy who can bend the skies to his command, you matter exactly jack shit to the eventual outcome. You come to accept that. In fact, you embrace it. It gives you the freedom to do what Vriska Serket would, and beat Gamzee Makara within an inch of his fucking life.

You come at him swords-out. No armor. No Legislacerator garb; you wear nothing red but the streak over your eyes, and you hope that will be enough. You would have suited up properly, but you didn't have time. Spur of the moment and whatnot.  _Thought is the enemy of bravery,_ and whatnot. You think it's about time you executed justice on someone who deserved it.

You've lived a long, unhappy life doing what you think is right. Now, you relish in doing what you want, with no care as to the consequence; right now, the only thing important to you in the world is beating the everloving _shit_ out of your ex-kismesis.

He sits there and grins at you with the most hideous fucking smile. It's not that he won't fight back that bothers you, exactly; it's that nothing you do seems to  _bother_ him. Even when when you're waist-deep and splattered with his blood, he still has the gall to smile, as if it's cute that you thought you could hurt him. As if you aren't even capable of making him flinch. As if all of your training and fighting and suffering don't mean anything. Because he's more powerful than you, higher than you, better than you. Isn't he?

Vriska would punch you in the face if she heard you say any of those things. You keep that thought present in your mind as you fight. But you can't for long, because while Gamzee is in front of you, Vriska is  _not_ , and that particular outcome is one orchestrated by your own design. Making the wrong choices, as you always have.

* * *

 

You lay dying on the Land of Pyramids and Neon, and you hope that Vriska would be proud.

John is off, skipping through time with your instructions. You think that she would like that. Yelling at John Egbert, the infinitely more powerful and important, with your dying breaths. It's vaguely ironic.

Fuck, it hurts to laugh.

You laugh anyway. Fuck the universe. You're going out with a manic grin and a stick of chalk in your hand, because you are Terezi Pyrope, and you're dying on your own terms.

You draw your own outline in blue. It's not her blue, but close enough, you think; it's not like there'll be anyone to judge you for the difference. Contrary to John's expectation, you don't actually die once you collapse. You remember Vriska telling you once about how the troll body shut down. Physical systems went first. Mental ones went last. So you lie facedown in the dirt and try to breathe as little sand as you can as John and Roxy fizzle out of existence behind you.

Now you are alone.

You are not disturbed by it. You were born alone. You will die alone, too. It suits you. Balance. Scales. Justice. A fitting end. Thematic consistency, something something, narrative balance. Vriska would get a kick out of it, anyway. You wish you could tell her.

You sigh. Fuck, that hurts too. There's very little you can do just now that doesn't hurt, actually, so you sigh anyways, and regret losing the capacity to operate your fingers, because you would love to flip something off. You don't care what. Just something. You feel like if anybody's earned the right to vent, you have.

_You didn't do much, Terezi Pyrope, but you did something._

You sent John back for the only thing you can think of, because when all else is broken, Vriska fixes it. Vriska always knows exactly what to do. Vriska rips fate into her own hands and precisely, meticulously executes every necessary action until all that is left is success. She was a better strategist than you. She should have killed you on the meteor. You would have been better off, that way, you think. That session would have had a higher chance of success.

High in the Medium, you can smell a pair of garbled, glitching letters etching themselves into existence.  **GAME OVER.** You'd laugh if it didn't sting like a bitch.

You hope that wherever she is, wandering the Dream Bubbles, she can see it.  _This one's for you, Serket._

Your body heaves, and then you're floating, oddly, and you can't feel a damned thing. Death. A funny sensation. You realize that the blindfold's gone, but you can't see, either. Thank God for that. Apparently, your Dream Self is still the ideal you, which means blindness. There's mercy yet in Paradox Space.

You wander for a while. It's hard to get your bearings in the glitch-world; smells and sensations shift and swirl out of existence quickly, and at one point your only option is to just keep walking and hope that anybody in your way has the good sense to move. 

Then you feel her. She's different - strange skinny braids and stockings and sleeveless and a little wider than you saw her last, a little softer - but it's  _her_ , sharp edges and a scent that smells like home. 

You grab her and refuse to consider that she might be angry at you, that she might not  _want_ to see her killer - but she hugs you back, and it feels like coming home.

You realize, distantly, that Paradox Space is shattering and your timeline is dissolving and you are instants from oblivion, but in all honesty, you cannot be bothered. She has her arm around your shoulders and her body against yours and you are finally satisfied. It's enough.

 

i.

No. It ends like this: John punches her in the face and saves your fucking life. Because he's John, who is never doubtful, who never thinks twice about his actions, and emerges from nothingness as a messenger from your future self. And she stays. For the first time in her life, she stays with you, like you're important, like you're worth staying for, and you cling to that like a dying woman clings to her last breath.

After the meteor starts its journey, Dave comes up to you and asks you out. You try to explain as kindly as you can, without sounding ridiculous - which you think you do anyway, but oh well - that you're really not interested in him. Or boys, generally, given that your alternate self decided to be vague. But since Dave is cool, and he's a good friend, he backs off fast and promises to catch you later. 

When you turn to Vriska, you have an apology ready on your tongue and an incomprehensible apologetic regretful mess of a speech lined up after that, but before you can unleash any of it, she blurts, "I'm sorry."

 _"What?"_ You try and wrap your head around the idea that she would apologize, or that she would recognize having something to apologize for. "What  _for?"_

"For fucking you over. For the revenge bullshit. For almost making you kill me. A lot of shit, and it'd take me a while to go over all of it, but. I'm sorry." She touches your shoulder, gently, as if she isn't sure that she has the right.

"Do you think that's going to make everything better?"

"Probably not." She smirks. "But I've got irons in the fire." Then, like you can't already tell, "I'm smiling. Kind of pathetically, actually. Like, if you could see, you'd be super disgusted with how sappy I'm being, holy shit."

You chew on your tongue for a moment, recognize that what she's saying is probably true, mull over the idea that she might want to be your friend. That she might be interested in you again, even though virtually nothing has changed from the moment before her near-execution to the next. Wonder if it was an internal change or an external one that shifted her attitude, and then decide you don't care.

"Apology accepted," you say, hoping it doesn't come out too quick. "Help me pick a new room. Rose took mine." It's a lie. But you want to be close to her, as much as possible, if you're going to have another sweep and a half more than you thought you would with her.

When she smiles, it smells like candle smoke and fruit and other cloyingly sweet things, and it's the most beautiful sensation you've felt in a while.

* * *

 

You are worried, for a brief, terrifying, and in hindsight idiotic moment, that when she meets Aranea Serket she will lose her regard for you. Because you turned down Aranea's offer of sight, even though it would make things so much easier on the meteor if you  _could_ see, and because you refused her advice; because Aranea is much more interesting than you are, by leaps and bounds, and because you think it's natural that a Serket would be more interested in a Serket than a Pyrope. You are astonished and then unsurprised to find that this is not the case. Upon telling her about Aranea's offer, Vriska's scent becomes sharp and murderous. When she meets her own Dancestor, she attacks her with such vehemence that you have to intervene to prevent bodily injury; after that, you fear less for your shared exploits in the Dream Bubbles.

You share a sleep schedule. Hers is the first face you see in the morning, the last at night. She shares meals with you and guides you through all the strange secret rooms she discovers deep in the bowels of the meteor. She tells you terrible jokes and makes you try some of the weird highblood meals that Equius would share with her sometimes, and you imagine that this is what your relationship could have been like, if you hadn't had your respective lusii. Regardless, you cling to what you have _now_ with a viciousness that surprises even yourself. Devoid of responsibility, you can throw yourself into her, and for the first time, you suspect she might want you there, too. 

* * *

Gamzee comes onto you, and Vriska loses her shit.

It alarms you, but only mildly, given that his beating at her hands doesn't so much disturb you as it excites you, and the fact that she lets you deliver the last blow is affirming in a way that few things are. You regret being cruel with him, to an extent, but the things he said to you were vile, and you refuse to repeat them even in front of Vriska, later. That makes her angrier, you think, but not at you. You make her promise not to kill Gamzee, which she does, reluctantly, but with enough moaning and complaining that you consider relieving her of the restriction just to shut her up.

Then she offers to be your kismesis, and your thoughts can be described precisely as a loud and unbroken train of _????????_

You don't feel black for her - that isn't the way your feelings work, you think, and you suspect that you can't actually feel pale either. But who cares, because she's offering you a quadrant, and perhaps - perhaps if she could give you one, she could give you another?

You offer yourself as her moirail, because you think you're good for her, and she's good for you, too, and isn't that what moirallegiance is? Being good for each other. And maybe you want to kiss her a little bit, and maybe you think she's more beautiful than anyone else in the whole of Paradox Space - but those things aren't so integral to what you feel for her as what she _is,_ so you think - yes, pale is probably the word for it. And if not, who cares? The only people who would have are dead and gone. You can vacillate if you want. It's a free universe.

You plop yourself in her lap and spout some cheesy bullshit that you saw on a movie once, but she stares at you like you've just said something incredibly profound. So you do something you've always wanted to and hold up the two-finger half-diamond, sitcom-appropriate, and hope and pray that she won't laugh in your face -

She touches the tips of her fingers to yours and her scent is like the forest during the flowering season, uncontrollably bright and overflowing and just shy of too much - just enough.

You bite her arm to distract yourself from the dangerous fluttering in your gut and she tackles you, and you forget about anything that isn't her for a long time.

* * *

Everyone stands around chatting on the Victory Platform, and you think that maybe you should put a little effort into socializing more, but you really can't bring yourself to give a shit. Vriska is about to leave - probably forever, or at least, more likely than not - and any instant spent not focusing on her is wasted. Your eyes are itching. You don't know why and you wish they'd stop. 

You want to tell her a lot of things. You want to say, "You're the only person who's ever cared about me the way I need them to, and I really don't care if you're my moirail or my matesprit or anything else, I just need you _there"_ \- but that would make you selfish, wouldn't it? And if being with her has taught you nothing else, it's that sometimes, being a hero means making sacrifices. You think that finally,  _finally,_ you are ready to be a hero.

So instead you say, "I couldn't ask for a better moirail," and smile. You're aware that it's unsettling and shows too many teeth. You are also aware that it delights her, and makes her scent turn affectionate and sweet.

"Me neither." Her fingers twine around yours and brush once, twice, over the back of your hand; the cool touch seeps into your skin, into your blood, and slows the movements in your veins. She always does this.

"I don't know how I'd have lived with myself. If I'd gone through with it." _Great idea, Terezi, bring up that time you almost killed her. You are the smartest. It is you._

"And we'd be dead if I hadn't. Thank God for Egbert." She doesn't mind. Nor does the idea of her death seem to bother her much. Vriska has never cared for speculation, much, you find. It grounds you.

"Gonna miss you," you blurt, and it feels woefully inaccurate. "Sure you have to get going so soon?"  _Be a little needier, why don't you, try to be a little clingier._

"Yeah, I really can't waste much more time." And she's the same as ever, you think; brutally efficient. It makes you smile. "Just have to get these goofballs squared away, and then I'm off." 

"Oh."

"Is something wrong?" She touches your face, and you let her. 

And then you spill everything to her, in one last sappy pale feelings jam that you hope will convey, in far too many words, what you're feeling. You've never been good at talking about your feelings. She's never been good at reading them. Somehow, you both manage to achieve synchrony despite it, although that seems more and more like a miracle, retrospectively. 

When she stands up and pulls her hand from yours, you let her go. It's a sacrifice. She'll never understand how much you need her, which is fine, and likely better than the alternative. She wouldn't like you, if she knew. 

Then she shoots you a grin, and leaps through the window, and you take a deep breath of the last scraps of her scent on the air. It smells like gunfire and adrenaline and excitement, and you think that it's a good smell to be the last that you ever know of Vriska Serket.

You don't say "Goodbye," not in front of all these people. Nor do you tell her what you're thinking. That would be a waste of words.

She always sees right through you. You think she knows.

 

viii.

You stand on the Victory Platform and think of Vriska Serket.

She isn't there. 

She promised you she would be there.

Everyone else is looking at the glowing white house with brilliant smiles, posed like the beatific victors that they are, but you aren't. You're not God Tier. You aren't a victor. The session you won is dead and fading and this is not your victory. Your Reward is floating somewhere through the vestiges of space, and so that's where you turn, seeking the dissembling void for any part of her.

She isn't there.

You are the last one to leave Sburb. The others walk one by one through the door; first John, then Rose, Kanaya, Dave, Karkat; Jade, next, and Roxy, holding Jane in one hand and Calliope in the other; finally, Dirk and Jake, leaning on each other for support as they clamber through. Dirk turns around in the entrance and squints at you through what you suppose must be an overwhelming abundance of light; it certainly tastes overpoweringly vanilla.

"Uh, troll girl?" He waves at you. "Are you . . . are you coming?"

"Yeah." You don't move.

"Look, things are getting pretty bad in there. Session's not meant to last after the Reward is claimed. You should hurry."

"I know." You continue to search the skies.  _She'll be coming. She promised she'd come. Vriska Serket doesn't break her promises. Not to me. Not anymore._

"Yeah, uh," he calls, "do you need help, or something?"

You give him what you hope is a cold, unimpressed look.

"Yeah, yeah, okay, idiocy acknowledged, moving on. What are you waiting for?"

You tilt your head up and sense the glowing cracks of fluorescence in the sky creeping ever closer. Even if Vriska came within range of your senses right now, she wouldn't make it in time to avoid the session's destruction.

"Nothing," you say, and climb through the door.

It seals behind you, and you think of Vriska Serket.

You tell yourself that this will not be the end. She is out there; you'll get Lalonde to help you track her down, and then you'll go find her. You'll push off your own celebration until you can give it to the girl that deserves it most. You'll find her and explain to her how you really need her, and even if she doesn't need you, her knowing will be enough. You will scour every damned corner of this universe until there is nowhere left for her to hide, fight every monster you meet, demolish anything in your way. You will be strong.

You have learned, over the course of your life, that you are not naturally brave. But you think that for her, you could be brave enough. 


End file.
